The Value in Hiring People Better Than You
Hiring someone better than you seems backwards, I know. Maybe “better” isn’t the best word, but hiring someone that will fill your gaps is the best thing you can ever do for yourself or your business. When I ran across this advice I was conducting three or four interviews per week. After really thinking about it I cut that down to one interview every other week. I did some pretty deep introspection, and thought about what I am good at and what I could use some work on. Introspection was not a new concept to me, but I had always thought about it in terms of improving my weaknesses and in that moment I thought more about how I can fill those gaps with employees rather than trying to fill them myself. For example, when I was running escape rooms I could fix just about anything, so when I was looking for an employee I didn’t care if they knew the difference between a drill and a driver, but I was not so good at creating décor for the missions so if this person had any artistic talent that was a major plus.
Hiring people better than you gives you a well rounded team, and it also lends itself to the theory of leaning into your strengths as much as possible rather than only focusing on your weaknesses. It is the opposite of everything we are taught growing up, which is to work on your weaknesses so you become well rounded and ultimately a better employee when the time comes. However, if we were all secure enough to hire people better than us the world would function such that you were really encouraged to solidify and perfect the things you are already naturally excel at.
This approach also helps your employees feel secure about being bad at things or being wrong, I am a relatively organized and meticulous person, which is great because then my staff don’t have to be. If you are not good at marketing the goal would be to hire an employee who is so good at marketing that you hardly have to think about it anymore. Don’t get me wrong, as a business owner you have to be versatile enough to jump in and help fix a problem but I can guarantee you’ll see less problems when you start to hire people better than you and trust them to continue to excel in that area. This also needs to be portrayed in your conversations with those employees. Your employees need to understand that you are counting on them for that specific talent and if they need help and/or cannot do something then they need to be transparent about that and admit where their gaps may be.
There is a difference between treating an employee well and treating them like they are better than you. Treating an employee well typically means paying them well, giving enough PTO, giving them duties and responsibilities that they enjoy, and giving them your attention to hear what they want. Treating an employee better than you means giving them ownership over something, asking their opinion on something and directing other employees to ask this person questions instead of you, because they’re the expert, not you. Additionally, regularly passing off projects to someone and telling them it’s because they will do a better job encourages them to do the same, so eventually everyone is playing to their strengths. They know that asking someone else to lead a particular project due to their skillset will not result in them being looked down on for not being a team player, but rather, that they just know someone else will genuinely do a better job.
Almost every employee that I have ever had has been better than me in one way or another. When I was secure enough to delegate projects to them and tell them I was doing so because they were going to do a better job than I ever could, our dynamic shifted for the better in a big way. Things felt less boss to employee and more peer to peer, I was doing less of the stuff I didn’t want to do and was able to focus on the things I was good at and really enjoyed.
Look for employees better than you no matter how low on the totem pole they might be, if you are a CEO hiring a receptionist they should be better at speaking on the phone than you are. If you are a manager looking for an intern, that intern should maybe know more about GMail than you. You’re never going to be the best at everything so lean into what you’re good at and hire for the rest. You’re only as good as your team.
